Saw this on Locus, and had to check for myself. I couldn’t find the announcement, so I went to MM’s newsgroup, and found out you can’t see the announcement unless you have Internet Explorer. I use Firefox or Netscape. However, because people couldn’t see it, the announcement was posted in the newsgroup. Here it is:

Dear Fans,

I am sorry to say that due to major distribution problems Meisha Merlin Publishing,
Inc. will be closing their doors in May 2007. Both Kevin and I along with the
entire staff here at Meisha Merlin want to thank all our fans, customers, authors,
& artist for your support over the past eleven years. We are sorry to have to
do this, but events beyond our control have forced us to make this decision.

ATTN: For those of you who have purchased The Virginia Edition. The Robert A.
& Virginia Heinlein Prize Trust has worked out an agreement to continue publishing
The Virginia Edition. You can expect a letter from them within the very near
future & volume seven will be arriving to you in late May or early June.

Laura J. Underwood

This is very sad news, indeed. One thing we don’t need is to lose such a major publishing force in genre fiction. I’d like to wish all staff and supporters of the company the best of luck in their future.

For those with Internet Explorer, or anyone who just wants to see the site and not necessarily the announcement, here is the Meisha Merlin website.

For those who don’t read comments (yes, I know you’re out there!), I received this comment on my previous post:

Nat Says:Hello, I’m Nat, the new Executive Editor/Owner of Afterburn SF. I really appreciate you helping spread the word about needing resubmissions. I also wanted to let everyone know that we have also increased our rate to $30 per published article and we are decreasing our publication frequency for now to a quarterly publication cycle.